the words ‘witch doctor’, that being the only name they understood) bring back someone from the dead like Lazarus. Was I popular? Like heck I was. I was made to say extra ‘Hail Marys’ as an act of penance for a whole week, each day in class. Some mornings I would be up with the sparrows, and walking across the paddocks to Grandfather's place to watch the workers yoke up the bullock teams. They would make a swipe at some dozy beast, and flick and crack their long whips with ear-splitting sounds. The leaders would heave and strain, and then with a creaking of yokes, and rattling of pins and chains, the 12 pairs of bullocks would plod away for whatever task was in store for them. Every now and then we would slip away to fish for sprats and cockabullies. To catch the sprats we would collect worms, usually from under old heaps of cow manure, select a strong green reed and tie a worm on the end with a couple of knots. The sprat swallowed this and began to choke on the knot so we had to be quick to ship the reed and the sprat onto the bank. We called these karewaka. We would sit on the edge of lazy flowing drains, chanting in unison, ‘Karewaka, Karewaka,’ over and over again. Ever on the prowl, we hunted kewai underneath rocks and stones in small creeks, cooking them on the embers of fires we lit. Maoris used the flesh to massage the gums of teething babies. While old Daisy the winter house cow stood in the small overnight paddock, I nervously and gradually found that if I squeezed her teats properly, I'd have fresh milk. I found out these things and many more, though there are still things I'm none the wiser about today. Why, for instance, do Maoris frown upon the use of floral garlands for crowning their heads, when the rest of the Polynesians delight in doing so? The only times I have seen garlands used by our people are at tangis, and then only leaves and greenery are used. As for planting by the phases of the moon, this has proved its worth over the years. Astrology is one of the jewels of civilizations that reach back into antiquity, an ancient science, treasured and studied by early men of wisdom, and passed on down to their descendants to this very day. Certain ceremonies, not unlike those held by the ancient Greeks, were staged by our ancestors to greet the arrival of special stars in the celestial highways. Sociologically and religiously, astrology played an important part in old time Maori tribal life. I was six years old, when I first stayed with Uncle Hemi and his family. Much water has flowed under the bridges of time since then. All over the country, many maraes and wharehuis stand silent and empty, and ancestral buildings decay and rot through the neglect and apathy of our own people. Hardly a day goes by without one reading or hearing of some other link with our past being destroyed for all time in the name of progress. My cousin and his family live in a fine home, about a mile from where I stand. His home has all the most modern comforts of living, but to me, it is stark and ugly. They have no time for trees, flowering shrubs and beauty. There is money to be made, and one must try to ‘keep up with the Joneses.’ My thoughts flee away from the present, back into the nostalgic past. I wander away from the old crumbling house, standing alone with all its fading memories. I wonder if my cousin ever feels as I do? Does he ever think of the past? What will he leave his children? So many of our people enrich their lives with a wealth that knowns no permanency, leaving their children heirs to a name, without visible substance. Have our lives been influenced by an over-indulgence of European paternalism to such an extent that our Maoritanga is lost? … … I leave, for I too am guilty of doing nothing constructive for my people, guilty of living contented in a world surrounded by dreams of yesterday.